Moscow is nervously watching the economic crisis unfolding in the European Union, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said yesterday, ahead of a working visit to France, adding he felt the crisis represented a serious threat to Russia’s own economic performance.
Medvedev’s harsh wording was not limited to economic woes, as he also hit hard at France’s stand on the Syrian rebels.
Medvedev complained to Agence France-Presse in a joint interview with Le Figaro yesterday that EU leaders sometimes lack the “energy and will” to solve their problems amid squabbles over whether to back austerity or growth. “We see this as a very serious threat,” said Medvedev.
This came simultaneously with the eurozone finance ministers’ meeting for the third time in two weeks on immediate funding to avert a threat of bankruptcy for Greece and to deal with the country’s ever-growing mountain of debt. Greece has been waiting since June for a loan installment of 31.2 billion euros ($40 billion) to avoid running out of money sometime around the end of the year. However, no result came out of the meeting before the Daily News went to print yesterday evening.
“We are, to a large extent, dependent on what happens in the economies of the EU,” Medvedev said. The EU states account for half of Russia’s trade volume while Moscow holds some 41 percent of its foreign currency reserves in euros.
Read more: ECONOMICS - Russia warns, Turkish firms avoid crisis-hit EU
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